Glenn Beck: More Government Spending Is Not the Answer

By T. Jefferson
Updated 12/01/2009 | 12:00 AM EST

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While most of us were arguing with relatives or loosening our belts this Thanksgiving weekend, there was a story that popped up that most of us didn’t pay attention to.

It was a story about Dubai and a mini-panic happened while we were sitting at our Thanksgiving tables. They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in the rest of the world, so this became a big deal while we lapsed into our football comas. This is an important story and nobody is explaining why it matters to us.

Dubai is Vegas on steroids. There’s a six-star hotel — I don’t even know what that means, but it sounds awesome — where the cheapest room right now, costs almost $1,600 per night.

They built all those houses in the Gulf in the shape of the symbol of Dubai; they created man-made islands to do it. Imagine us making houses on islands we built, in the shape of the presidential seal out in the Gulf of Mexico!

The have indoor snow skiing in the sizzling heat of the Middle East.

These are the only people in the world who make us look Amish. When our banks were in trouble we went knocking on their door and now they are going belly up?

Uh-oh.

Aren’t they from a well-off part of the world right now? And if they have run out of money on their lifestyle-modeled after us? How much more time do we have?

Let’s look at Dubai and see what their problems are:

• They have massive debt

• They over-speculated, thinking the market would never turn sour

• They continued to spend after the world economy started changing

• They do nothing with their own domestic energy and now they want a bailout

By the way, everything I just listed is happening right now in California as well.

Here is where it affects you because, again, the world markets freaked out over Dubai World’s problems and California is in the same situation.

Let’s start here: Dubai World has a GDP of $75 billion a year; California’s GDP is $1.8 trillion — the eighth largest in the world, ahead of major countries like Italy. What happens when the truth of what’s going on in California becomes apparent to the rest of the country and the world?

When news of the credit risks in Dubai were announced the Dow Jones fell 154 points. Again, California is the eighth largest economy in the world with a GDP of $1.8 trillion.

California is now reportedly up to $130 billion in debt. They’re handing out IOUs at tax time. They are proposing new 10 percent taxes, called "forced loans." The energy shuts off every other week. Fires rage because they refuse to clear the underbrush. And now they have just proposed another $11 trillion in debt through a bond issue even though California’s state comptroller says they can’t afford more debt.

Dubai should have put on brakes. California should put on brakes. All of America should put on brakes, but no one is.

Government spending, incredibly, is set to increase through 2011. Our deficit is $12.2 trillion today and by 2018 it’s projected to be over $24 trillion — and that’s if everything goes well.

Since I’ve brought this up and have dared talk about accountability, I’ll of course be ridiculed by those in power and so will you, if you’re concerned about these spending policies. But they have been saying that big government spending wasn’t crazy for a long time.

Henry Morgenthau, who served as Roosevelt’s treasury secretary during FDR’s administration, said at the time: "We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work…. We have never made good on our promises…. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started… and an enormous debt to boot."

It took a World War to get us out of that mess; let’s not go down that path again.

At the peak of government spending during the worst financial crisis in our history — the Great Depression — we only spent 4.3 percent of GDP. This year, President Obama will spend 26 percent of GDP. This year will be the largest government expansion since the height of the Korean War.

But this is not solely an Obama problem; federal spending is up 57 percent since 2001. Obama is just putting his foot on the accelerator. And you have to ask: why? It hasn’t worked in Dubai. It’s not working in America or California. And it hasn’t worked in Greece. It hasn’t worked in Ireland. It didn’t work in Iceland. It won’t work here.

What they are not reporting in Greece or Ireland is the unrest and the amount of violence because the people’s money has been squandered by out-of-control politicians. The people’s future has been destroyed by greedy governments, in bed with big business.

The New York Times just reported that one out of every 8 adults and one out of every four children get at least some of their food from food stamps. That’s more than 36 million people. That sounds like we are headed down the same road as Ireland, Greece and Iceland. When you combine no jobs with hunger and an unresponsive government, you have a recipe for potential disaster.

So how do you fix it?

History has proven over and over again — and so has the Post Office, for that matter — that government is not the answer. You need to unleash the people. The entrepreneurs. And if you are wondering how it is that the government can’t see that — how they can be pondering even bigger stimulus packages as they stare the failure of the first one right in the face — I’ll show you.

Here are the past presidents and the number of appointees in their Cabinets with private sector experience — folks that have done more than write on the chalkboard; they’ve been out there, in the real world.

Let’s compare President Nixon — he’s over 50 percent — with President Obama: Under 10 percent of his appointees have any experience in the private sector.

The solutions will never come from government; government is the problem. Universities are not there to teach you what to think, but how to think — so that you, as the entrepreneur, will go into the real world and think outside the box.

The entire idea of this country is to build a better mousetrap. Someone is at home screaming in their underwear, "I have the answer!" OK, first, put your pants on because that’s always a good safety tip before changing the world. Then, get up and do it.

The individual with the crazy idea has brought the world the light bulb and the elevator; we have fundamentally changed the world through the power of the individual. Government will never do it better — they are incapable.

We have always been the country of the underdog. But we have become the country cheering for the guys who have the giant Death Star, instead of rooting for the cute little Ewoks. We are for the little guy! At least we used to be and I believe, still are.